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Paradise by the oven light

Holy shit you guys…I just put my first ever Thanksgiving Turkey in the oven. It’s 12:30 on T – Day. I hope I did it right. I put lots of carrots, celery and onion in and around the bird, put some garlic under its skin, laced it with Dijon mustard and some butter and topped it off with some white wine. Is that right? I don’t know. I did remember to take out the plastic bag of giblets, and much to Byron’s dismay I am not going to fry them up and eat them. Gross. It’s kind of fun making something new and in a foreign place where you can’t tell if you are buying salt or sugar because the packaging looks the same and you can read the label.

Our little group of displaced expats is trying our best to make Thanksgiving a real holiday. It’s funny, because to the rest of the city today is just another day. I could hardly tell it was Thanksgiving because the grocery stores are not lined with displays featuring cans of cranberry sauce, disposable roasting pans and marshmallows for the sweet potatoes. I was lucky to find a frozen turkey! It was mixed in with the dozens of frozen ducks, possibly looking for asylum from the nasty American holiday. No such luck my little gobbling friend, no such luck.

Our menu seems to be as follows: Brent is making potato corn chowder, Scott is bringing the mashed potatoes, Ben’s doing the green beans, GB and Davey are in charge of appetizers, Summer is doing a green salad, and of course I am making the final mockery of the holiday by roasting the bird. I kind of picture it like that scene in Brigitte Jones’s Diary where they eat the blue soup. At least we’ll all be drunk. It’s not Thanksgiving if I don’t get drunk by 8:00p.m. I will defiantly miss the Mac n cheese and the after feast festivities that always include Karaoke, at Rainbow’s house. I never thought I’d be nostalgic for Thanksgiving, given that I have always loathed this holiday. It has always been about forced festiveness, gluttony, football, having to wash a shit load of dishes and try not to offend the stupid, Rush Limbaugh loving, fascists I was forced to break bread with. People who say things like, “Being gay is just offensive.” Uh huh. Real fun. That’s why spending Thanksgiving with a group of liberals in Berkeley was astonishing to me. We would toast to a new Presidency and talk about cool bands and movies. I loved it. There was games and reefer and karaoke. That, THAT, is a good thanksgiving.

I know you are dying to know how the bird turned out, so I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. It was amazing! I swear! I made a Thanksgiving Turkey and it tasted good! And not just good, it was really tast

y and juicy and well, perfect. People were having second helpings and everything. I felt pretty good about it. Davey said I get the Thanksgiving MVP award … sweet.

It was one of the best Thanksgivings I can remember. Our new little family gathered and made it happen. Sure there was paper plates and we had to share bowl, but it was ours. The food was all-delicious and there was an abundance of wine. Brent’s potato corn chowder was amazing and Mary and Scott’s mashed potatoes were fantastic. We had a lot of potatoes, but heck it’s Prague. Who could ask for more?
Our new neighbor Jen (who we met at TEFL and lives across the hall from us – coincidence) also came and brought some yummy ice cream for dessert. We had a blast. The 20 Questions computer game astounded everyone as usual. Ben was amazed that it knew “lint” and at one point we became convinced that it could hear us so we began whispering the word we were thinking of. We laughed a lot. I think my favorite moment was the spontaneous karaoke like jam to the Meatloaf classic, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light”. Davey, Jen and myself did the whole song – in parts – it was fantastic! Ben was shocked and amazed that we all knew the words to the song that he had never heard before. I told them all that my best friend back home is probably having some sort of conniption fit and doesn’t know why. Jenn (J-LO) hates, loathes, heck I might go as far as saying despises that song. Which is strange because I think she actually likes Meatloaf – or as we like to call him…The Loaf. Anyway.
That was Turkey Day – Prague style.